LinuxProgramming: Oracle Shows Microsoft How a 600-pound Gorilla Ought to Behave

“If software giant Microsoft is a “600-pound gorilla,” then Oracle is a 500-pound gorilla–or at least has that
potential, if it chose to leverage its market dominance the same way that MS does.”

The idea behind app servers is to have most of the tasks involved in generation of dynamic web pages be performed by a separate program, maybe even on a
separate machine, from the web server that serves up the pages to the browser client. This is another area where Oracle could, if they wanted to, attempt to
lock in customers by providing a proprietary web server–Netscape and Microsoft both have been doing this for years. What is Oracle bundling with iAS for you to use as its web server? It’s Apache. No sign of MS-style lock-ins with this bundling!

“Microsoft has 90-95 percent of the desktop operating system market; Oracle has 80-85 percent of the database software market. Oracle’s revenues are second only
to Microsoft’s among software companies, and recent fluctuations in MS stock price have put Oracle CEO Larry Ellison in contention with Bill Gates for the title of
world’s richest man….”

“The idea behind app servers is to have most of the tasks involved in generation of dynamic web pages be performed by a separate program, maybe even on a
separate machine, from the web server that serves up the pages to the browser client. This is another area where Oracle could, if they wanted to, attempt to lock in
customers by providing a proprietary web server–Netscape and Microsoft both have been doing this for years.”

“What is Oracle bundling with iAS for you to use as its web server? It’s Apache. No sign of MS-style lock-ins with this bundling!”